Democrats turn on Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The party has lost confidence in her as a unifying leader and a party spokesperson. | AP Photo

Walker’s campaign pounced, and it became a running segment on Fox News and even a Republican talking point in the governor’s race in Florida. His Democratic opponent, Mary Burke (who wasn’t at the event), quickly distanced herself from Wasserman Schultz’s remarks.

Wasserman Schultz explained to POLITICO that the comment was “the result of my very intense, passionate feelings about Scott Walker or any other tea party Republican whose policies have done harm to women, and that’s what I was trying to highlight. … In the heat of the moment, sometimes that’s going to happen, especially with as often as I have to be doing what I’m doing.”

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Wisconsin is one of the few spots in the country where there’s an endangered Republican in blue territory — and Walker is someone the Democratic base locally and nationally, especially unions, would love to see gone or bruised significantly ahead of a possible 2016 White House run. That’s all prime territory for a DNC chair, especially with a female candidate for governor. But people say Wasserman Schultz would only be a liability if she returned.

“Her ineptitude during her last visit makes it impossible to go back before the election,” said a person familiar with the Burke campaign.

Women’s issues are central to Wasserman Schultz and one of her priorities at the DNC. Though there was a women’s group at the DNC before her — the Women’s Leadership Forum, which was co-founded by then-first lady Hillary Clinton— Wasserman Schultz sought to expand the work by starting a larger umbrella group called the Democratic Women’s Alliance.

“Ironically, women through the Women’s Leadership Forum were treated like an ATM. The Women’s Leadership Forum is exclusively a finance arm,” Wasserman Schultz said. “There was no institutionalized, organized outreach program for women.”

Thursday, the Women’s Leadership Forum will gather in Washington for its annual National Issues Conference, featuring a blockbuster guest list that includes both the president and first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, and, in her 2014 DNC event debut, Hillary Clinton.

Clinton will speak to the group in the morning and then head to New York for a separate DNC fundraiser, while Obama is expected to speak in the afternoon. Wasserman Schultz, though, is listed as another headliner for the New York event, though she’s hoping not to have to rush out on Obama to appear with Clinton.

SPLIT WITH CLINTON

Wasserman Schultz says she and Hillary Clinton have “a special relationship.”

Asked to explain what that entails, she said, “I’ll just leave it at that.”

As with the Obama White House, the DNC chairwoman’s relationship with the Clintons is fragile.

Back in 2008, Wasserman Schultz was a co-chair of Clinton’s presidential run and one of the campaign’s most active surrogates. In the rough final weeks of the primaries, when the Obama campaign was looking for every pressure point to force Clinton to quit, Wasserman Schultz gave them one.

Wasserman Schultz reached out to the Obama campaign to let them know she knew Clinton’s campaign was over, even though it would take a few more weeks. And she wanted them to know she was ready to be there for Obama as soon as it was. Through back channels, according to people connected to the discussions, Obama aides promptly let Clinton aides know that one of her last allies was backing away.

This has not been forgotten.

Through a spokesperson, Wasserman Schultz denies that she ever made a call herself to the Obama campaign but declined to address what her staff might have done. The spokesman said Wasserman Schultz’s first substantive contact with the Obama campaign came after Clinton dropped out.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said she has “the highest regard” for Wasserman Schultz, calling her “a tireless advocate for Democrats and Democratic values, a strong leader in the House and an effective chairwoman for the Democratic Party.”

Merrill did not get into the question of whether, should Clinton run, she would commit to keeping Wasserman Schultz as DNC chairwoman.

There’s ample reason to suggest this won’t happen. At some point Clinton will have to admit she’s running, and the Clintons have always been more interested in party politics than Obama has. Reshaping the DNC would be a natural early priority.

“When you think about their operation and the operation they like to run, she will not be running it,” said a Democratic strategist familiar with both the Clintons and the DNC. “Someone will clean that house.”

DNC CEO Amy Dacey — who’s won accolades in the White House and among the other Democratic campaign committees for her work to get the internal budget in order and increase coordination — predicted that Democrats in the midterms and the next presidential race will benefit from the DNC’s efforts, and from having Wasserman Schultz there.

“I know that she’s serving until ’16 and is involved in all the strategic conversations we’re having to build to that,” Dacey said. “Her time and devotion to the DNC is certainly there.”

Officially, Obama’s still the one who’ll get the say. The White House also did not address the question of keeping her as chairwoman past November.

Wasserman Schultz said she’s not going anywhere.

“I am focused on doing this job. I was elected to a four-year term. And I fully expect to be in this job through January 2017,” she said.

Speculation is already rampant that Stephanie Schriock, an experienced political operative who’s now the president of EMILY’s List — where she’s a big booster of Clinton’s candidacy in addition to being part of the working group of outside people supporting a run — would be a natural fit to come in as chairwoman. Through a spokesperson at EMILY’s List, Schriock said there have been no discussions and she was not aware of the possibility.

Other potential replacements include Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the mayor of Baltimore and secretary of the DNC, and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, currently the co-chair of Clinton-supportive Priorities USA Action.

In April 2013, shortly after she left the State Department and was beginning to reconnect with old political friends and allies, Clinton invited Wasserman Schultz for coffee at her house near Embassy Row in Washington. Wasserman Schultz herself came with a pitch, asking Clinton to write the foreword to her own upcoming book.

Clinton considered the decision. It wasn’t personal, said a person familiar with the secretary’s feelings, but Clinton turns down 99 percent of book asks, particularly then, as she was writing her own.